There isn’t much of a change in their style of music since their last album, Comfort Eagle, apart from more extensive use of synthesizers. In 2005 John McCrea (songwriter for all songs saving the only cover on this album, “The Guitar Man”) says in an NPR interview about their songs compared to other songs on that radio at that time:

For a lot of years and I think it’s just about to become that way again[…] the music that (radio) played was all really big and bold and kind of bulbous and fat sounding and our music has always been more economical and lower to the ground; intentionally not because we are weak but because we favor that aesthetic"

The album was recorded in a studio and engineered in a simple house. Rather than aiming for perfect audio they welcomed the imperfections that result from not recording in a professional studio.

It would also become their last album released on Columbia Records. Columbia tried to get Cake to make a Greatest Hits album. The band refused, saying it’s too early after only having released a few albums and that the idea “reeks of desperation”(1). Legal drama ensued and the band formed their own label, Upbeat Records.